lighting with strobes

[auxr8220]

as most would know from previous threads, i dont have a great understanding of photography but i am slowly learning.

i tried to light with strobes when i first got my SLR, but i didnt like it and put it into the too hard basket.

i pulled out my cheap chinese flash's the other day, and thought id give it another go alot of people on a car forum i visit are doing lightpainting so i wanted to do something different. i researched a bit on strobist.com and looked at setup pictures on flickr.

this morning on my way home from work, i thought id give it a go.

this picture has a flash on the left pointing at the wheel, a flash on the right pointing at the wheel and a flash behind the car pointing at the roof to bounce light on the top of the car.
not the best photo but one of the first i took this morning and for cheap $20 flash's i was impressed




number two has the same sort of lighting setup with a flash on each side and one to the left pointing at the ceiling to bounce light onto the front of the car (which didnt really work as i wanted it)



and last photo shows a trial setup, took it because i can



the flash's have very limited functions, cant change power levels or anything really. so after seeing on strobist.com that vivitar 285hv's are an ok cheapish flash i decided to buy 3 of them. should have them here with in a fortnight so ill do some more trial and error and post up the results.

[gstark]

A couple of points.

Small flashes are exactly that: small, and with limited power. The amount of light available for your images diminishes at a rate of the square of the distance from the light to the subject. If you're bouncing a small flash head off a ceiling, you may be increasing the distance by around 50%, and thus you'll only have about a quarter of the lights' output available for your image.

When you're bouncing off surrounding surfaces, always be aware of any colour that those surrounding surfaces may be. A white surface will reflect your light as white; this is good. But a pink surface will reflect the light with a pink hue, and a blue surface will impart a blue hue to your images. Grey concrete will reflect some light, but it will also absorb some, due to its black content.

And if there's no ceiling at all, there's no real purpose to pointing your flash head upwards, as there's no surface from which the light may be reflected. (How often do you see people pointing their flash heads upwards when they're outdoors?)

Small white cards that can be used as portable reflectors can be very helpful in these sorts of circumstances.

And the Vivitar 285 is quite a good unit.

From reading your comments, you say that you were pointing your flash heads towards the wheels ... basically downwards. In the second image, pointing the light sources downwards is good, but be careful not to point them down too low, nor to have them mounted too low. I think for this image they need to set at a height a little above the roofline, and then pointed slightly downwards. This would have given you more illumination on the bonnet, while not detracting from the light on the grill and lower parts of the car too much.

As it stands, the brightest part of the vehicle is the bumper bar. I'm not too sure that that's the main feature you wanted to display.

[auxr8220]

cheers gary ill keep all of that in mind.

i got the idea of bouncing the light off someone on flickr, the photo of the mercedes he took was amazing.

and yeah i do agree that the flashes were too low, i brought some cheap tripods that have a maximum height of 1 metre for the flash's. i do have a 2 metre lightstand here but need to buy an attachment to suit a camera mount for it. with that and my tripod set the full height (about 1.5m) ill give it another go.

i might look into a light meter aswell, to help me out with what settings i should be using coz at the moment ive got no idea

[gstark]

i might look into a light meter aswell, to help me out with what settings i should be using coz at the moment ive got no idea

Actually - and I certainly don't want to talk you out of getting a light meter - you already have the tools you need for determining correct exposure.

First of all, the light meter: make sure that, if an when you get one, it includes flash meter functionality. These days, most of them do, but just make sure before plonk down your hard-earned.

But as I said, you already have what you need. Your camera displays a histogram, doesn't it? Learn how to read and use it, and it, along with your eyes, will guide you to ensure that you have the correct exposure. Using the histogram, you can generally achieve correct exposure within three test images shot, just by reviewing the graph after each shot and making the required adjustments to bring the images into your requirements.

About the only place where I can see a light meter might help in these images is in helping you to achieve a better spread of light across your subject. Looking at the first of these images, you might observe that the centre section of the car - the area around the B pillar and doors - is darker than the corners/ends. If you were using a meter and took incident readings along various points of the car, you would see this as a variation in the readings, and you would adjust the lights' location as a result.

The histogram wouldn't actually show you this ... but by simply chimping the image, you should see that there are some areas of the image that are darker than others.

Cheers.

[CraigVTR]

I will not repeat any of the great advice Gary has given you. I will just say, love the car.